Table 1: Telecommuting
Statistics, by organization and individual, from 1988 to
1995, projected to 2002Table 2: Costs and
Benefits of Telecommuting, by organization and individualTable 3: Occupational
Structure of Telecommuting and Non-telecommuting
Organizations

)Introduction
The growth of the telecommunications industry in the past decade
is a phenomenon that cannot be overlooked. Between 1989 and 1993,
the proportion of computers in America connected in networks rose
from under 10 percent to over 60 percent (Gilder 1993:77).
Between 1980 and 1990 the annual consumption of personal
computers rose by approximately 900 percent and expenditures on
personal computers rose by 1100 percent (Biocca, 1993: 81).
Clearly, an interest in home computing has taken the public by
storm in recent years. Along with this increase has been a slight
increase in the amount of workers who have chosen a relatively
new employment option: telecommuting.

Telecommuting has been variously described as
telework, electronic homework, the electronic cottage,
networking, distance work, location-independent work and
flexiplace (Huws, 1991; Morrison & Saveri, 1991). The
existence of such varied synonyms is important as they each
connote a slightly different meaning for the phenomenon. In fact,
the definitions for telecommuting are quite diverse. Some
research focuses solely upon work done from the home, while
others integrate work done in "satellite offices", or
"on the road" via laptop computer technology. The
various synonyms represent distinct manipulations of space made
possible by the different contexts of working outside of the
office. There are many confusions and overlaps in definitions.
For example, in one research instance, "telecommuting varies
from teleworking in that teleworking involves travel to a work
center that is near a residential area in which the teleworkers
live, and the actual work is not conducted in the home or a
downtown area. These telework centers are particularly common for
clerical and data entry workers who can do their duties without
being present in the office headquarters for the firm for whom
they work" (Geography Department, University at Buffalo). In
another study, however, telework is more vaguely defined: it is
"work that, as a result of the application of information
and communication technology, is separated from the location of
the employer" (for at least 20 percent of working hours)
(Weijers, et al, 1992: 1049). Other organizationally related
variables, such as the differentiation between self-employed
entrepreneurs, sub-contractors, piece-workers and part- and
full-time workers, cloud the definition as well.

To further complicate matters, the relationship of
costs and benefits are often "made to measure" for
different work organizations themselves. Weijers, Meijer and
Spoelman (1992) found this in their research on telecommuting in
the Netherlands: "Unfortunately, it turned out to be
impossible to make a quantitative analysis of the costs and
benefits [of telework]. This was caused partly by methodological
problems, such as the large differences between teleworking
companies that meant that a benefit for one company - e.g.
reduction of location costs - was completely unimportant for
another company" (1051). The scope of all of these
differences makes comparative analysis difficult.

The variety of problems that arise with these attempts
to define the phenomenon lead to the conclusion that the concept
will likely be more useful as a theoretical guide rather than a
methodological one. In other words, "telework is so nebulous
and ill defined a concept that it can hardly be said to exist in
any clearly defined and quantifiable way; it exists more
powerfully as an ideological construct than as reality"
(Huws, 1991: 28). This could explain the scarcity of research on
this much talked about topic (cf. Tomaskovic-Devey & Risman,
1993). Rather than trying to pin down an exact empirical map of
the phenomenon and its effects on work life and family life in
the United States, it may be more useful at this point to see how
different societal aspects are affected by this phenomenon and to
see what new conjectures can be attained from such a study. Such
postulates will help in building new hypotheses regarding the
phenomenon that is "telecommuting".

)History of
TelecommutingIt will be helpful to explore from the
beginning how the term "telecommuting" arose. The
wheels began to turn in the post World War II days, when
telephones and television, as well as automation technology,
became increasingly used to facilitate commerce. But it was not
until the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s that the term
"telecommuting" was coined by Jack Nilles in response
to the realization that the worlds fossil-fuels were hardly
inexhaustible and energy conservation was now a necessary
forethought. "Commuters found alternative methods for
conducting business that did not require the expense of daily
commutes to work. The individuals involved in the information
economy began to develop ways to remotely commute and a new
work-style resulted" (Geography Dept., University at
Buffalo). As the energy crisis waned, the focus on commuting also
gave way to a new focus on the widespread integration of the
computer into the workplace itself. In the late 1970s, awareness
was dawning that the silicon chip was becoming part of a major
industrial restructuring. At about this time cheap personal
computers and workstations were entering the workplace. "A
new imagery of computer use accompanied this change. Instead of
being the tools of white-coated technicians or senior executives,
computers began to be presented as instruments by which their
passive female operators could themselves be controlled.
Advertisements for word processors emphasized the ways in which
the technology could increase accuracy and productivity and make
it easier for managers to monitor the clerical workforce. Much of
the previous mystique was stripped away" (Huws, 1991:
23-24).

This social construction of the technology of the
workplace again changed in the late-1980s, as those in
professional occupations grasped onto the idea (popularized by
Alvin Tofflers image of the electronic cottage)
of using the computer as a space-flexible work tool. Eventually a
new identity was carved out for this employee niche as well.
"People who work at home are enjoying a newfound
respectability. In the early 1980s, many executives shied away
from being called home workers. But it is now increasingly
accepted behavior. With this acceptance the identity of home
workers has changed" (Braus, 1993a: 42). Respectability as a
computer operator, according to this view, has been regained and
has been transferred into the home as well as in the office.

Curiously, the focus on commuting has also come
full-circle from the early 1970s. With the passage of the Clean
Air Act of 1990, many companies have turned to telecommuting in
order to comply with that mandate. By November 1994, the U.S.
government required "thousands of businesses employing more
than 100 people [to] submit detailed proposals outlining a
program deemed by the employer as a way to reduce their
employees commute time by 25 percent through car pooling,
public transportation incentives, condensed workweeks, or the
most practical, cost-effective and popular option,
telecommuting" (Zelinsky, 1994). The Telecommuting
Guide offered by Smart Valley, Inc., notes a
similar local mandate in Californias Bay Area. "The
most frequent trip is to and from the workplace, and the vast
majority of these trips are made by solo drivers. The best target
for public education campaigns and ridesharing incentive programs
is the workplace. That's the idea behind the Air District's new
trip-reduction regulation for large employers. Under the Air
District's new rule, employers with 100 or more employees at a
single work site must set up commute incentive programs that
encourage employees to get out of their single-occupant cars and
into public transit and carpools, or to bike, walk or
telecommute to work. The new rule will
affect about 3,000 employers and roughly half of the Bay Area's
workforce."

However, evidence indicates that telecommuting is in
fact not impacting traffic conditions. Niles (1994) notes that
while telecommuting is on the increase, so is the number of
vehicle miles traveled, but, contradicting the Telecommuting
Guide, these miles are not work-related. He
asks, "why is the number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT)
growing so fast and urban traffic congestion increasing while
telecommunications is growing in capability and use every day,
and why does this occur while the number of telecommuters is
growing in the short term at more than 10% annually? One answer
is that commuting represents a minority share of trip purposes,
even in rush hours, and is growing smaller." Pointing to
Salomons (1990) research, he concludes that the
conventional wisdom that telecommunications is a substitute for
transportation is erroneous. "There is, at present, very
little evidence to support the substitution [of
telecommunications for transportation] hypothesis, " says
Salomon (in Niles, 1994). What then, is the impetus for
telecommuting, and exactly how prevalent is the phenomenon? The
latter question is, perhaps, easier to get an initial grasp on.
However, it should be remembered that varying definitions lead to
a wide discrepancy in actual results on the telecommuting trend.
Thus, these demographics should be understood with the
appropriate precautions.

)Demographic
Trends in TelecommutingThe estimates of telecommuting that have
been made over the past several years fluctuate greatly and
include both individual and organizational figures. As shown in Table 1, in
1988, estimates were located at roughly 15 million part- and
full-time telecommuters, with 4.9 million having formal
telecommuting employment relations. It should also be noted that
35 percent of home workers (including those not
designated as telecommuters) owned personal
computers, more than twice the national average (Telecommuting
White Paper, 1991; Ambry, 1988). In 1989 and 1991, two respective
estimates place the number of United States work organizations
offering telecommuting at 500 (Telecommuting White Paper, 1991;
DuBrin, 1991). In 1991, DuBrin reports the number of home workers
at 26.6 million, and purports the number of full-time teleworkers
to be less than one percent of that figure, at 20,000. However,
DuBrin then mysteriously projects that the United States work
force will include 30 million telecommuters in 1992. Another 1991
estimate shows the number of telecommuters at 1 million
(Telecommuting White Paper, 1991).

In 1992, Think Research, Inc., places the number of
organizations offering the telecommuting option at 30 percent,
but notes that this estimate may be high given the survey
methodology. Other estimates (by Hay Huggins, LINK Resources, and
Catalyst are mentioned) range between 6 percent and 17 percent.
Braus (1993a) notes that in that same year the growth by
telecommuters outranked the growth of any other sector of home
workers. In 1993, one set of figures reflects 2.9 million
full-time employee telecommuters with no travel to an office,
jumping to 7.5 million if one includes part-time and contract
working telecommuters (Geography Department, University at
Buffalo). Braus (1993a) estimates, however, that this figure
should be between 20 million and 39 million teleworkers,
depending on the definition used, but then proceeds to quote
figures from LINK Resources (a New York City-based research and
consulting firm that conducts an annual survey of home workers)
stating that a 20 percent increase occurred in the course of the
past year, bringing the total number of telecommuters to 7.9
million (tripling the figure from 1988). In 1995, Southwestern
Bell quotes LINK Resources as estimating the number of part- and
full-time telecommuters at 7.6 million, with the average yearly
increase being 15 percent. Projections for future increases range
from 15 million to 30 million part and full-time telecommuters
(Morrison, Saveri, 1991; Geography Dept., University at Buffalo;
Southwestern Bell, 1995).

It is clear from this synopsis that, first,
definitions of telecommuting vary to a great degree, throwing
comparative estimates off tremendously, and, second, that
different methodologies of measuring the number of telecommuters
also can cause an immense variation in projections of future
trends. Similar problems have been noted in German estimates of
telecommuting. "Two industry federations estimate that some
30,000 Germans currently work at home by computer. Estimates from
other sources range from 3,000 to 150,000, demonstrating the
difficulty of defining just what makes a worker a telecommuter.
Should the self-employed count as teleworkers? What about sales
representatives, computer programmers, graphic designers,
translators and mail-order catalogue employees racking up on-
screen hours in their homes?" (The Week
in Germany, 12/1/95).

However, despite these inconsistencies one fact
remains clear: the number of telecommuters in many nations is
increasing. This fact alone is significant enough to warrant
further study of the situation. Because of the unreliability of
quantitative data, though, a qualitative and theoretical analysis
of the phenomenon should ensue. The issues that are at hand with
the growth of telecommuting are threefold. First, what
occupations are being targeted for telecommuting? Second, what
are the implications of the ability to more or less disregard the
spatial component of work, specifically with respect to the first
organizational consideration of targeted occupations? And third,
how is telecommuting affecting the decaying relationship between
the traditional public and private spheres of work and family?

)Organizational
and Occupational Motivations for TeleworkMotivations for telework differ between the
employer and employee. Generally, the adopters of telework are
those organizations who see it as "a solution to their
problems of finding scarce skills and of cutting costs" and
those individuals "who see it as a solution to their
child-care problems, their need to stagger working hours around
non-work commitments, their desire to set up as an independent
entrepreneur or the lack of any employment option" (Huws,
Korte and Robinson, 1989). Table
2shows the
various costs and benefits from both an organizational and
individual perspective.

Many non-profit groups have emerged in the past few
years to facilitate organizational development of telecommuting
programs. One such group is Smart Valley, Inc., which began
operations in 1992. This 1994 press release shows the strength
with which non-profit groups would like many, if not all,
workplaces to a commit to a formal telecommuting policy:

Smart Valley, Inc. is a
nonprofit organization chartered to create a regional
electronic community by developing an advanced
information infrastructure and the collective ability to
use it. Smart Valley's mission is to facilitate the
construction of a pervasive, high-speed communications
systems and information services that will benefit all
sectors of our Silicon Valley: education, healthcare,
local government, business and the home. Smart Valley,
Inc. is affiliated with Joint Venture: Silicon Valley
Network, a broad-based, grass roots coalition of
initiatives begun in 1992.

"Up until now,
telecommuting has been acknowledged as the trend du
jour and employed, primarily, by a
handful of so-called progressive companies," said
Dr. Harry J. Saal, president and chief executive officer
of Smart Valley. "The reason few companies have
embarked on such a project is in part due to the
organizational considerations that are key elements in
instituting a program."

A similar national group offers support as well:
"The national Telecommuting Advisory
Council -- TAC --
is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the economic,
social and environmental benefits of telecommuting. Our members
share information about the telecommuting program and policy
design, development of the U.S. telecommuting sector,
implementation of telecommuting programs and telecommuting
research."

Taking on the telecommuting process in a formal sense
can save companies money in the long run. AT&T has had an
informal telecommuting program for special cases for 10 years;
now, due to the clean air mandate, the company is formalizing
this program into a policy that will invest $4,000 into
outfitting each worker with the technology and the furniture to
become a telecommuter. This move will not only benefit the
employee, but will have a profound impact on the companys
expenditures: it will drive down its current $88 million staffing
and real estate costs by 50 percent, according Linda Villa, human
resources vice president for AT&T (Zelinsky, 1994a).

Other organizational considerations that Smart Valley
bring into in question lie chiefly along the lines of
productivity concerns. Will the employee working at home via
telecommunications lines be as productive as if he or she were in
the office? All evidence suggests that the employee will be
significantly more productive
as a telecommuter.

Time saved from physically commuting from home to
office alone can greatly enhance productive efficiency. In their
support of telecommuting, Southwestern Bell shows
that "a 10-minute commute to the office (a 20 minute
round-trip) consumes two 40-hour weeks a year. A 40-minute
commute consumes about eight working weeks every year. And that's
just the time spent in the car -- waiting at stop lights or
crawling through traffic snarls. The whole process is hard on
cars, the environment and the commuter, too. It's also
non-productive time for companies that employ commuters. In
response, today's businesses are looking for alternatives to
traditional employee commuting. The best answer to date:
telecommuting" (1995). But the benefits for employers go far
beyond time saving measures.

The most important benefit of telecommuting, according
to AT&T, is the rise in productivity when an employee becomes
a telecommuter. "Blue Cross telecommuters reportedly boosted
their productivity levels by 50 percent, Pacific Bell by 57
percent, J.C. Penney by 25 percent, and The Travelers by 33
percent. AT&Ts own fleet of 6,000 field salespeople
report an increase in productivity of 45 percent when they work
out of the office whether it be at their clients offices or
at home" (Zelinsky, 1994a).

The basis for these productivity increases is unclear.
Some researchers (e.g. Perin, 1991) assert that telecommuters in
fact practice overtime work at home. Employees are more likely to
be adding hours than substituting for those at the office.
However, the overwhelming reason that individuals involved in a
telecommuting arrangement prefer it is control.
"The first and most important reason is having control over
ones work," says Braus (1993a). Thomas Miller of LINK
Resources agrees: "Quality of life is the prize theyre
chasing Despite differences, a clear self-identity is
emerging among home workers - the thing that unites them is a
need to control their time" (Ambry, 1988).

In addition to controlling their own time, individual
motives for greater production coincide with the wants of the
organization. Telecommuters work at home primarily to get more
work done. Forty-six percent of respondents to the LINK Resources
1987 study chose this answer as a reason for why they
telecommute, followed by having no choice (16 percent), making
more money (10 percent) and convenience (9 percent). Notably,
more than twice as many women as men said that having more family
time was a consideration (Braus, 1993a).

Family time is also a significant consideration for
the individual, as noted in the cost/benefit table (Table 2).
However, this issue seems to be taken under scrutiny once the
telecommuter begins to experience it. According to the Roper
Organization, another firm that studies home workers, 33 percent
of home workers are distracted by household chores, 30 percent
are unhappy with family interruptions, and 24 percent miss the
regular routine of work. With specific respect to child care, an
often cited reason for telecommuting, Ramona K.Z. Heck, an
associate professor of consumer economics and housing at Cornell
University, says that working at home does not solve child-care
problems for working parents. "If you have any children
under 18, you will reduce your work-at-home hours per year by
about 407. That equates to about one day per week." People
with children under age 6 lose an additional three-quarters of a
day per week. (Braus, 1993a). These factors show telecommuting as
not necessarily the boon in control and autonomy that some claim
it to be. In a study of a British software corporation, F
International, that had been employing a substantial number of
home-based programmers who were mostly female, it was found that
"telework did not present itself as a perfect solution to
any problem; it was merely one of a range of possible compromises
available to them during periods of their lives when they were
torn between the irreconcilable demands of wage-earning and
caring" (Huws, 1991: 26).

Other disincentives exist for the individual
teleworker as well. "Home workers miss office socializing,
according to Home Office Computing
research," says Braus (1993a). In the case of part-time home
workers, they also miss paid benefits and staff and support
services. This is a concern to labor unions that traditionally
have protected office workers benefits and supports.
Because of the newness and inherent idiosyncrasies of the
telecommuting phenomenon, unions have had difficulty breaking
through new legal barriers to protect telecommuters.
Telecommuting has many inherent problems in the eyes of labor
organizers. Because of this, in 1994 a telecommuters "bill
of rights" that strives to define the rights of employees
circulated through the legislatures of New Jersey and California.
It is likely that legal issues that re-define private/public
borders will be focused upon more clearly as the trend continues.
One such issue is the question of who should provide the
technology and furniture necessary to telecommute. Current
California state policy states that employees who telecommute
three days or more a week are provided with a workstation and
equipment, but will not have a space in the main office
(Zelinsky, 1994a).

According to Huws (1991), there is a fear "that
telework could become a means of destroying trade union
organization There have been calls from trade unions and
other organizations representing office workers (such as the U.S.
group 9 to 5) for
electronic homework to be controlled or even banned outright, as
was argued with some force by the German trade union, IG
Metall" (26).

Several recent studies regarding the occupational
structure of telecommuting may substantiate these fears. In 1991,
Dutch researchers studying telework reached the conclusion that
there is a "flexible organization of work and that this
flexibility led to the existence of two different groups of
teleworkers- the well educated professionals (management
consultants, systems analysts) for whom telework was a step
towards entrepreneurship, and the not so well educated women
(typists, data entry) for whom telework seemed to be a step away
from unemployment. Protection through legislation of the latter
group could become necessary" (Weijers, Meijer and Spoelman,
1991: 1049). A study conducted in North Carolina by
Tomaskovic-Devey and Risman in 1993 confirms that a similar
pattern has occurred here in the United States.
"Telecommuting tends to be organized very differently for
professional and clerical labor forces. In general, professional
telecommuting has been a reorganization of the job that allows
increased flexibility and is used to increase the capacity for
uninterrupted work. Clerical telecommuting tends to be
subcontract or piece rate work done totally at home and with the
loss of benefits packages" (368).

This point of view properly recognizes no
technological determinism in telecommuting. The expansion of
telework is not imminent nor is it a result of a technological
imperative; rather, any growth in teleworking will be related to
economic, social and political trends (Huws, Korte and Robinson,
1989). Likewise, Tomaskovic-Devey and Risman "do not stress
technology as decisive. Instead, technology [is] embedded in
social choices made by managers and workers in an organizational
context Technologys effects on the labor process
itself are contingent primarily on managerial goals and worker
power and status" (1993: 367, 383). It is the interplay
power and status with organizational motives that seem to be the
relevant variables in determining the social outcomes.

According to Tomaskovic-Devey and Rismans
findings,

when workers have
organizational or labor market power or are of high
status, managers are pushed toward innovations that
enhance productivity even if this means abandoning goals
of direct worker control or labor cost savings.
Conversely, low-power, low-status workers are lore likely
to be the object of punitive or close
supervision Managerial goals will be primarily
contingent upon the relative power and status of the
class of jobs under consideration.

Managerial considerations
significantly associated with the clerical telecommuting
option are loss of control
and labor cost savings.
Top managers who fear that telecommuting will lead to
loss of control are half as likely to approve of clerical
telecommuting. On the other hand, managers who are
concerned with possible loss of managerial control are
more likely to favor professional telecommuting
arrangements, suggesting that direct workplace control is
an already resolved issue in the management of
professional telecommuters [Similarly,] managers who
see telecommuting as a source of increased employee
satisfaction are likely to reject the clerical form and
endorse the professional form (1993: 370, 380).

This pattern is also exemplified in the responses to
Think Research, Inc.s 1992 survey of organizations with
telecommuting programs (see Table 3).
Respondents were asked to provide the percentages of their
employee populations that could be classified as blue collar,
clerical or professional/technical/managerial. The findings
generally show that the larger the percentage in the
professional/technical/managerial category, the more likely the
organization is to sponsor a telecommuting program. Conversely,
the larger the share of blue collar employees in an organization,
the less likely the organization will be to sponsor
telecommuting.

When low-status workers are offered
technological innovations, it is typically without regard to
quality of life issues. "As the relative power and status of
jobs rise, managers are more likely to utilize technology that
increases productivity. Similarly, as the power and status of
jobs increase, technological innovations are more likely to lead
to decreased efforts to control labor and increased concern with
the quality of work life. Workers in low-power, low-status jobs
are more likely to be subject to technological innovations that
control their labor and disregard the quality of work life"
(Tomaskovic-Devey, 1993: 383). To account for these findings, a
social-psychologistic model may be appropriate. It would seem
reasonable to assume that professionals (those who have almost
certainly earned some credential from a university, college or
technical school) are assumed to have developed a level of
discipline that clerical workers lack, so that control becomes
split along these lines. This, of course, does not take into
account the huge amount of variance that exists between
individuals with respect to levels of discipline. Simply because
one has not earned a degree should not be a basis for assigning
psychological characteristics to a person. However, it seems as
though such a concept has become institutionalized into the
workplace and acts as a guiding rule in the case of managerial
decision making.

DuBrin (1991) notes this education effect on the
availability of work-at-home amongst a sample of 67 women. In his
study of employees of The NPD Group, Inc., a national market
research firm, using the demographic characteristics of the two
groups he observed (an in-house group and a work-at-home group of
equal size) along the category of "some college or more
education", 11 from the in-house group ranked, whereas 20
from the work-at-home group fit the category (the difference
between groups was significant at the p£ .05 level)
(1227). Other anecdotal evidence also reaffirms this hypothesis
and may account for the lack of enthusiasm that has been
exhibited in starting telecommuting programs in Germany.
"Despite the seemingly glowing future, businesses in Germany
remain hesitant to take the plunge into telecommuting, the Frankfurter
Ründschau reported recently. The reasons
for this, the newspaper suggested, lie partly in the fact that
companies that have tried telecommuting have not realized the
savings they expected Also, many in middle management fear a
loss of power and prestige if their employees are not physically
present and under their supervision. To overcome these
difficulties and support those companies that have ventured into
telecommuting, the European Union has provided some DM six
billion until 1998 and is also funding a series of pilot
projects" (The Week in Germany,
12/1/95).

)Status,
Supervision and Home/Office BoundariesThe emphasis on supervision and its control
characteristics is the main supposition of Perins (1991)
study of teleworking Internal Revenue Service field agents and
management consulting systems specialists. Perin employs Jeremy
Benthams concept of "panopticon" to conceptualize
the workplace and explain the relative lack of
institutionalization of telecommuting amongst professionals that,
according to the above literature, would have no problems in
attaining it and would potentially benefit from greater autonomy
and higher productivity. The basic premise is that "the more
constantly the persons to be inspected are under the eyes of the
persons who should inspect them, the more perfectly will the
purpose of the establishment have been attained" (Bentham,
in Perin, 1991: 243). The purpose of the establishment of work
is, from the employers point of view, to maintain productivity;
from the employees point of view it is to maintain status, even
enhance it. So, "American understandings of appropriate
times and places of work motivate [the] rejection [of
telecommuting]: Employees believe that their continuous office
presence is necessary for promotion; managers see it as being
essential to supervision. Yet salaried professionals characterize
their offices as zoos where they find it impossible
to be productive. To think and write, they work at home,
overtime, where managers are unconcerned about their
invisibility", thus the greatly increased figures that have
turned up for various companies when productivity is measured
(Perin, 1991: 242). The social construction of the time and place
of work, then, demands for professionals to monopolize upon time
in the office when it is available. It is the very fact of
"control over others time allocations that defines not
only formal occupational status, but situational influence as
well, as when the chairperson who arrives late legitimates a
position simply by having kept others waiting" (Perin, 1991:
248). An office-home schedule breaches the conventional boundary
between home and work.

One prevailing concern employees have is that an
office-home schedule invites organizational obtrusion into a
private domain. In general, when employees are working at home,
on regular time not overtime, managers tend to distrust their
diligence. "Nine information systems specialists,
hand-picked for competence, were allowed to work at home 3 days a
week; but, controlled by a new, formal reporting system, they
soon felt not only that they were supervised more,
but that their managers were less forgiving about missed
deadlines than if they were visible in the office, where managers
were likely to justify delays as being everyday
problems "(Perin, 1991: 249).

Even without such sharp supervision, the combination
of work and home can become problematic to telecommuters. One
person reporting on his experience with teleworking noted that
"an initial honeymoon period of two or three years, which
were accompanied by feelings of elation and high productivity,
was followed by a less satisfactory period which was accompanied
by feelings of loneliness, isolation and a growing desire to
escape the same four walls He was totally
unprepared for an experience which [many] women would recognize
immediately as the trapped housewife syndrome "
(Huws, 1991: 29).

The co-optation of the home, the private sphere, the
traditional domain of solitude from the "real world",
ones sanctuary from Goffmanian fronts, by the public domain
of work is potentially traumatic. An alternative explanation to
the increase in productivity could, nonetheless, be postulated.
It is possible that some telecommuters find it possible to
integrate and re-construct the workplace within the confines of
the social construction of the home. It would not necessarily be
unfair to associate work done in the home with a greater sense of
commitment, for, in bringing work into the home, that work may
take on the characteristics that are associated with the home:
private, genuine, authentic. The work, and the worker, may be
legitimated in a way that could not occur in the public sphere of
the workplace. This theory could account for those
extra-productive telecommuters that do not achieve their
productivity levels through overtime home work.

However, it is certainly plausible that these public
and private spheres of work and home that have been
institutionalized since the onset of the industrial revolution
are reinforced into mutual separation by the very strength of
that institution. This is a very likely reason for the unrealized
expectations of the futurists of the 1970s that prophesied the
eruption of electronic cottages throughout
computerized societies. The mitigation of social, economic and
political circumstances has clearly stunted the growth of the
phenomenon of telecommuting. The power of telecommuting as a
symbol, on the other hand, remains potent because of its attempt
at re-defining the long entrenched institutions of work and
family. As Huws says, with telework "we seem to be offered a
resolution of the age-old conflicts between the needs for
adventure and security, for communication and for privacy, for
the excitement of the city and the serenity of the countryside.
This is the stuff of which symbols are made [It is]
testimony to the power of [this] symbol that few other aspects of
work organization are discussed in this emotionally (and often
also morally) charged way" (1991: 20-21). The relative
empirical instances of telecommuting may be small compared to
society-wide patterns of work, but the importance of the idea of
telecommuting is bound to re-shape our institutions in some
(unpredictable) manner through its power as a social symbol.

)ConclusionIt has been seen that telecommuting is a
complex and multi-faceted new system of work and family
organization that has yet to wedge itself into the social fabric
of societies world-wide. What is inevitable, it seems, is the
continued development of the technology that makes the world
smaller and changes the way in which we conceive of space and
location. What can certainly not be predicted, however, is the
way in which social institutions accommodate these newfound
technologies and alter our perceptions of what we consider
private and public spheres of our lives. How will the elements of
status and power come to affect the stratification of occupations
within the telecommuting trend? In what way will old institutions
adjust to integrate new technologies? What will be the function
of the former central city when centralized space is no longer
necessary for work? How will the family structure be reformulated
to adjust to these changes? Further research on telecommuting is
most certainly warranted for it may enlighten the direction in
which we are turning our current institutions of work and family.